Rachel Gorman

My undergraduate academic advisor, George Yonemura, said in his calm, thoughtful voice, “Rachel, you don’t need to know what you want to do when you get out of college. You don’t have to choose a career now. Just take the classes that excite and inspire you. Immerse yourself in things you feel passionately about, and from there the road will open up to you.”

With that advice I went on to study counseling, psychology, education, sociology, wellness and bereavement, earning a BS in Human Services & Counseling and an MA in Social Science with a concentration in Early Childhood Education and Parent Education. Upon graduation I was hired by the local hospital to teach “Parenting Your Newborn,” the course I created for my Masters Thesis.

Over the next 14 years, I worked in hospitals as a Child Life Specialist, and then as the Director of the Child Life Program at St. Vincent’s Hospital in NYC. Unless you have had a child in the hospital, you have probably never heard of Child Life. Child Life Specialists are part of the pediatric team, working with children and families in the hospital providing psychosocial and emotional support, helping ease the stress and anxiety of diagnosis, medical procedures and hospitalization. As a Child Life Specialist, I was trained to teach coping techniques to parents, children and staff and to ease the stress and anxiety that can accompany hospitalization. I trained incoming nurses, medical students and residents on the hospital experience from the child’s point of view. As adjunct faculty at Bank Street College of Education, I developed and taught a required masters course, “Healthcare Environments” preparing new Child Life professionals for the field.

I took a conscious break from the hospital to work in education with healthy children. I was hired as the Director and Instructor of a corporate owned Kumon Center in Manhattan. The training and development of students, parents and staff was a key component to this job. In addition, I worked closely with Kumon North America on research and marketing initiatives.

In 2011, I was hired as the Director of Hospital Outreach and Wellness Education at a non-profit organization. This job was multi-faceted and pulled together many pieces from my past — education, research, psychology, engagement, teaching and training. I facilitated educational, hands-on, service-learning and team building initiatives with corporate employees, school children and hospitalized children and families with 15 to 500 participants. In this capacity, I worked with Accenture, BNY Mellon, Cigna, Deloitte, Facebook, Horizon Media, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, New York Life and Zumba. I worked with schools, community organizations and hospitals throughout the country, supervised positive psychology empirical research, strategized with the CEO to design core programs, and co-authored, or co-edited, educational videos, webinars and wellness modules all based on psychology and social science. Modules were created in conjunction with leaders in the field who are faculty, researchers, psychologists and educators on post traumatic growth, resilience, gratitude, character strengths, hope and happiness.

I was recruited by the Mind Gym and became a Certified Mind Gym Coach and Trainer. Mind Gym transforms the performance of people at work by changing how they think, feel and behave every day. This is done by combining the most recent behavioral psychology with the latest consumer marketing techniques, so the solutions always appeal to the individual and have business impact. In the first six months of working with the Mind Gym, I delivered 80 trainings to over 30 different companies, including: Ann Inc., CBS, Gap, Hearst, Hershey, Madison Square Garden, MasterCard, MetLife, Penguin Random House, Prudential, Publicis, Suffolk Construction Company, Thomson Reuters and WWE.

I am reminded daily of my advisor, George Yonemura’s advice — to immerse yourself in things that have meaning and purpose to you, things that energize and excite you. I continue to be inspired by education, psychology, communication, wellness, training and development. I closely follow research that identifies what goes into people living meaningful, healthy, purpose-driven lives. I have created workshops based on strengthening character, engagement, relationship building and enhancing communication. I thrive working with individuals and teams, helping them recognize their strengths, heighten their awareness and deliberately practice new thinking and behaviors to achieve higher satisfaction in life and work.

I live in Manhattan with my husband, Peter, and son, West. When not working, I enjoy spending time with family and friends — running, rock climbing, hiking, watching movies and taking in the sites and scenes of New York City.